A wide variety of electrical connectors are designed for mounting to printed circuit boards. Such connectors conventionally include a dielectric housing, such as a unitarily molded plastic housing, adapted for mounting to one side of the board. The housing typically includes a front mating face for mating with a complementary connecting device and a rear terminating face from which a plurality of terminals exit the housing for termination to circuit traces on the printed circuit board. The terminals normally include mating portions for mating with the terminals of the complementary connecting device, and terminating or tail portions projecting from the housing for interconnection, as by soldering, to circuit traces on the board or in holes in the board into which the tails are inserted.
Some printed circuit board mounted electrical connectors are designed for mounting at an edge of the board. The connector housing has a mounting portion for mounting to a top surface of the board to define a seating plane for the connector. For instance, the main body portion of the connector housing may run along the edge of the board, with mounting ear portions of the housing projecting from the terminating face thereof for mounting to the top surface of the board. The tail portions of the terminals project from the housing, such as between the mounting ears projecting therefrom, for termination to the circuit traces on the board.
Problems continue to arise in designing electrical connectors of the character described above. These problems often are associated with the design and/or assembly of the terminals in the connector housing. For instance, difficulties arise in inserting the terminals into the connector housing because of the delicate nature of the tail portions of the terminals projecting from the rear terminating face of the housing. These tail portions may be very thin elements and insertion forces would tend to bend or break the tail portions. Therefore, many such electrical connectors employ stamped and formed terminals which are formed with various portions to facilitate insertion of the terminals into the connector housing. On the other hand, it would be desirable to be able to simply blank the terminals from sheet metal material, but blanked terminals heretofore designed do not facilitate efficient insertion of the terminals into the connector housing.
In addition, simple blanked terminals have a tendency to be relatively wasteful in the amount of sheet metal material required in the blanking process. The design of the terminals result in a considerable amount of sheet metal material going to waste after the terminals are fabricated.
Still further, the configuration of the terminating/tail portions of the terminals which project from the housing for interconnection to circuit traces on the printed circuit board, have not been amenable to high density arrays. The terminating or tail portions of the terminals simply require too much space at the rear face of the connector housing.
The present invention is directed to solving the various problems identified above and satisfying a need for a printed circuit board mounted electrical connector having an extremely compact terminal array which facilitates insertion of the terminals into the connector, the terminals being blanked of-sheet metal material in a very efficient, nonwasteful configuration.